Why Europe Is Giving Up on Trump’s America

An artist’s rendition of President Trump on a wall in Berlin last year. President Trump has promoted the image of the strongman in world governance.CreditSean Gallup/Getty Images Europe

PARIS — On Nov. 9, 2016, when we Europeans woke up to the news of Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, most of us understood that it would have a significant impact on world politics. What we did not realize at the time was how much that event would alter the basic fabric of international relations.

Over the past 16 months, we have been through roughly three stages in dealing with the fact that our first ally, the United States of America, is ruled by such an unorthodox president. We began by betting on human wisdom and political realism: Soon enough, Donald Trump, the nationalist, populist candidate, would wise up and become President Trump. Maverick politicians tend to do this in democratic societies.

Then came the “adults in the room” stage. When it became clear that there was no wising up in the Oval Office, we were led to believe that fortunately, the celebrated checks and balances of the American system were functioning. The toxic Steve Bannon would soon be on his way out. Some experienced, reliable generals were taking over; their advice would prevail. How would official Washington have reacted if generals were appointed to key posts in a French or German government? Not warmly, one suspects. But these being no ordinary times, Europeans went along with the idea.

For those who still bought it, the “adults in the room” theory took a serious beating last month at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top dogs in foreign and defense policy. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis came, but surprisingly did not take the floor. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, did speak but was very publicly chided a few hours later by a presidential tweet because he “forgot” to say that Russian interference had no impact on Mr. Trump’s election.

Senior European officials admit that however good their cooperation may be with counterparts in the Trump administration, the president’s unpredictability looms too large over decision-making. We have now entered the third stage of the great European disbelief. It could be called the “Angela Merkel was right” stage, in a nod to the German chancellor’s statement after the NATO and Group of 7 meetings last May that “we Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.”

American officials keep trying to reassure their puzzled European interlocutors: “Don’t look at the tweets, look at what we do.” Repeated over and over, it is truly an extraordinary line. Think of representing your administration and telling foreigners every day: Ignore our president. But that’s a pipe dream. This president cannot be ignored because he is already profoundly transforming international relations, well beyond promoting unilateralism at the expense of multilateralism.

Will there be a trade war? Maybe not. Yet last week’s assault from the White House, like a bolt from the blue, is a taste, for Washington’s European and Canadian allies, of how low the trans-Atlantic relationship can go under President Trump. Western partners of the United States cannot expect to be treated any better than China. When Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on ABC on Sunday, “There is a lot of history that needs to be undone,” he was addressing trade relations. To Europeans, this has a deeper meaning. It is post-World War II history that is being undone — the very history that the United States built, the foundation of the Western alliance.

Mr. Trump earlier pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal as part of his “America First” doctrine. The TPP is now back, revived by its 11 remaining members — without America. A world where the United States led multilateral trade agreements is ending. But nations still engage in multilateral trade pacts, as the European Union has done with Japan and Mercosur, the South American trade bloc. The United States is just not part of them.

President Trump has also pulled his country out of the Paris accord on climate change. Signatory countries are finding ways to go around this defection by working with more cooperative partners — American cities, states, corporations — just as they’ve done with trade.

The president has allowed Vladimir V. Putin and Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leaders of Russia and China, to take center stage on the global scene. As Mr. Trump was being inaugurated in January 2017, President Xi was wasting no time stepping up, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to pose as the champion of multilateralism and free trade. President Putin had already started his forays into Ukraine and Syria when Mr. Trump was elected; the Russian foray into the democratic processes of Western countries, including the United States, would be exposed soon after. By stubbornly refusing to criticize Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump shortchanges his administration, confuses his allies and weakens the American response.

Mr. Trump is also threatening to overturn one of the biggest diplomatic achievements of recent years, the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, which Europeans are frantically trying to save.

By unilaterally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the president has demonstrated his contempt for international law, reversed half a century of American commitments and, in doing so, badly damaged his country’s credibility in the region.

President Trump has promoted the image of the strongman in world governance. Dictators used to be ashamed. No more. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte can continue boasting about gunning down suspected drug dealers. In a phone call last year, circulated by the Philippine Foreign Ministry and reported by The New York Times, Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. Duterte for his “unbelievable job on the drug problem.”

President Trump has shown how little consideration he has for diplomacy: More than a year after he took office, senior positions are still vacant at the State Department. There are no American ambassadors to Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey or the European Union — not to mention Mr. Trump’s indecently crude disparagement of African nations and Haiti. Diversity, once part of American soft power, has disappeared from images of administration officials. Photos of meetings at the Oval Office are crowded with white males, who also staffed the press briefings in Davos last January.

This list is incomplete. But it’s sufficient to justify skepticism at the mantra “Don’t pay attention to the tweets.”

Mr. Trump: In case you wondered, Europe is paying attention.

Sylvie Kauffmann is the editorial director and a former editor in chief of Le Monde, and a contributing opinion writer.